Etica, responsabilità sociale d'impresa e coinvolgimento degli stakeholder

This paper aims at studying relationships between ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder management theory (SMT), especially as premises to deepen the concept of stakeholder involvement and/or engagement. This study is an attempt to re-frame a conceptual model envisaged by Rusconi (2006 a,b,c). The paper is set out in five sections. First, a brief conceptual analysis of connections between ethics and business enterprise will be conducted. The second section reviews the complexities relate to the relationships between ethics and competitive strategy, with particular focus on the influence that has been exerted by the “Italian theory” named Economia Aziendale, with its systemic viewpoint. The third section introduces the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its connections with business ethics. In particularly two key issues will be considered: 1) voluntariness v/s law-regulation, 2) the subjects of CSR. In dealing with the latter issue, some concepts of stakeholder management theory (SMT), as conceptualised by Freeman and al, will be examined in the fourth section. Finally, in the last section, SMT is metaphorically merged into systemic developments of Italian Economia Aziendale, here defined as Firm System Theory (FST). In particular, as a result of the process of merging SMT into FST, the following considerations can be drawn: 1) from a strategic point of view involvement and/or engagement, with their different consequences, can be useful to pursuit a better and more stable equilibrium, satisfying all stakeholders as well; 2) “absolute ethics” helps managers to avoid unfair treatment of stakeholder by excluding from involvement and/or engagement who is not “useful” from a pure competitive point of view; 3) this theoretical perspective is pushing towards more considerations of the points of view (favouring innovatory engagement practises) of stakeholders that are not top manager, helping in this way also a better management too.